Monday, 18 May 2015

Here's a slice of flash fiction for the Horror Bites Challenge inspired by the image below. For this one, Laura of Office Mango (the lady behind these challenges) asks: "Bring me your gardening tales of darkness and death".

Darkness? Death? That will not be a problem.

Guzzle

By Mark Cassell

(350 words)

A pool of grey muck leaked
from the hessian sack. The smell of animal, of wet fur, forced Gerald backwards.
His elbow smacked the shed door. The hinges creaked and an evening sunshine
lanced the gloom.

“What—” His voice came
from a tight throat. He crouched beside the sack.

Something shifted inside,
something heavy. Gerald jerked away and his foot slid in the filth. He crashed
into a rack. Tins of nails, nuts and bolts, and a box of metal brackets rained
down and clattered across the floor. He grabbed his head, clenching his teeth.
From a throbbing scalp his fingers came away sticky.

The top of the sack gaped
like a crooked mouth.

Gerald’s heartbeat
thundered into the silence.

A clawed hand shot from
the sack and jagged fingernails shredded the fabric. In a splash of filth, a
bulk of mottled flesh, slick and glistening, flopped out. Fleshy limbs with
bony joints and covered in bristles, extended and slurped. One hand slapped the
floor, fingers curling.

That filth spattered
Gerald’s face and covered his lips. Bitter. He spat. His legs shook, his
stomach churning; his breath came in short and sharp.

The creature stood
upright and raised a bulbous head that almost touched the ceiling. Floppy
appendages—were they ears?—clung to either side of a stubby snout. Clumsy,
blunt teeth chattered between wet lips. Yellow bug-like eyes leaked as though
crying not tears but pus. Raw blisters seethed over every inch of its grey
flesh, and slime dripped from its immense torso like the thing sweated the damn
stuff.

Seeming to ignore Gerald,
this abomination reached towards a shelf and snatched a bottle of plant food. Plastic
cracked as it tore off the cap. Knocking back its head, mouth wide, it guzzled
the contents. White liquid dribbled over quivering lips and a forked-tongue.
The empty bottle thumped the floor.

Gerald’s legs and arms
failed him, shock and terror rooting him to the floor.

It grabbed another bottle
from the shelf, this time animal repellent. And this, too, it downed. Next was
a bottle of weed-killer, and then white spirit.

Mark Cassell lives in a rural part of the UK with his wife and a number of animals. He often dreams of dystopian futures, peculiar creatures, and flitting shadows. Primarily a horror writer, his steampunk, fantasy, and SF stories have featured in several anthologies and ezines.

His debut novel, The Shadow Fabric, is a supernatural story and is available from all bookshops and online, including Amazon.